FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: Excuses

Language is the vehicle by which self-justification is established.  Think about it; if we assume that there is a conceptual void in the mind of other animals, that the consciousness of a squirrel, a raccoon, an owl, etc., is devoid of language as we employ it, then how can procrastination or delay occur?  It is precisely language and the tools of conceptual constructs which provide for an “excuse” for response to a stimuli, and allows for human action to be prevented.

The will to act or refrain from acting is often considered the hallmark of higher intelligence; but intelligence itself can be a detrimental quality, allowing for self-destructive actions resulting from a string of illogical but persuasive reasonings.  Where lack of intelligence provides for the immediacy of response to a presented encounter, so the presence of it in elevated forms will allow for justifying delays to such responses, even if it means a magnified danger to one’s own survival.

Excuses and self-justifying declarative sentences allow us to maintain a false sense of security by providing foundations for continuing on a path of self-destruction.  That is precisely why the Federal and Postal employee who suffers from a progressively deteriorating medical condition can maintain a semblance of normalcy despite physical and cognitive indicators to the contrary, sometimes for months, and even for years.  But pain and cognitive dysfunctions have a funny way of reminding the body and mind of danger signals.  Brain synapses communicate the growing danger, and they continue to alert until the time comes when no more linguistic justifications will maintain that false sense of security.

When that time comes, the Federal or Postal worker must consider the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

There is always time for being excused, and sometimes it is well-justified; then, there are other times when the exhaustion of excuses comes to a crisis point, and one must consider a different path.  That “different” path is the need to have a restorative period of recuperation in order to attend to one’s impending medical condition.  Federal Disability Retirement, under FERS or CSRS, is just that allowance for recuperation, and is a path of difference for many Federal and Postal employees.

There are excusable considerations, which last for a time; but time is a linear movement of bodies, and on the universal scale of progression, there comes a point when both time and excuses run out their course of self-justifying efficacy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Time to Make the Decision (Part 2)

The medical condition known as “Fibromyalgia” is analogous to the manner in which Federal and Postal employees approach the decision-making process in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS & CSRS.  Let me explain:  Fibromyalgia, as the Office of Personnel Management often likes to characterize, often manifests itself with chronic and diffuse pain which “waxes and wanes” — meaning, in simple terms, that there are good days and bad days; days when the pain is unbearable, excruciating and debilitating; and days when one can “manage” the extent of the pain and mental dysfunction and confusion. With that context, the Office of Personnel Management often tries to argue that it is not “so bad” as to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS & CSRS. 

By analogy, people with all sorts of medical conditions — from physically debilitating neck and back pain; from Orthopaedic injuries, arthritis, chronic pain, visual impairment, etc.; to psychiatric disabilities of Major Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD — some days, one can seem to manage the disability; on other days, one cannot get through the day, let alone perform the essential elements of one’s job.  But deep down, one knows that one cannot continue forever on the same course.  To continue is to slowly wither away by a thousand cuts, one cut at a time, one cut per day.  And so, just as the Office of Personnel Management is plainly wrong (for Fibromyalgia is a chronic and debilitating medical condition which clearly qualifies for disability retirement), so the person who procrastinates in making the decision to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS & CSRS is simply waiting for the inevitable.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire